


it tastes like anger but feels like giving up

by ooka



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 10:58:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11401134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ooka/pseuds/ooka
Summary: See, there is this plan.  Her plan of attack.  She drew it out ten years ago, 18 and wanting to rule the world.  And she has to be in an IT role to do that. She was just breaking through the male bullshit walls.  Where they were respecting her ideas, her abilities to pick up work and complete it without needing supervision.  She was finally getting somewhere, after three years of stupid nothing work.Then Oliver Queen happened.(early S2)





	it tastes like anger but feels like giving up

Oliver doesn’t get it.

Felicity wants to rage, wants to scream.  But instead, she sits at her desk.  She smiles.  She fiddles around on her Surface.  She doesn’t miss her old desk with the crappy mouse from 20 years ago and the sticky L key.

She doesn’t miss the way her inbox was always flooded with questions. The ever present IM sessions tossing back and forth Doctor Who references, coming up with scales about “wanting to murder the business and paper work monkeys”, listening to coworkers having white boarding sessions.  

She doesn’t miss living in a land where things were theoretical, impossible even, problems, that she could attempt to build herself.  The place that blurred reality on a daily basis.

Felicity doesn’t miss it, because she can’t.  If she allows herself to think about what ground she’s lost, she will lose her goddamn mind.  But she can be angry.  She can be a simmering pot of rage about to bubble over.  

And she can let him know it.  

And oh he knows it.  He catches her eye whenever he walks past.  Like last week.

“Would you like to pick out lunch?”

“Not today Mr. Queen.  I brought in lunch.”

He deflates a little.  “Are you sure you don’t want some Italian from that little place around the corner?  I can call ahead and get us a table.”

She practices her still-stiff fake smile.  “I need to be watching my calorie count, and I am sure I don’t get the chance to burn as many calories as you.”   _ Like when you go running around rooftops _ , goes completely unsaid.

“You don’t need to watch your calorie count Felicity,” he replies, sweet and innocent, because the real Oliver doesn’t get it.  Doesn’t always read between the lines so well in non-Hood business.  Usually, this is something Felicity lo- _ likes _ about him.  

Today...not so much.

“Thank you for your kind words Mr. Queen,” she bites out, thinking about the 30 minute routine she goes through every night, the increased usage of the work gym during lunch, and Diggle’s continued sessions.  She works her ass off.  She always has.  “But I still need to watch it.”

Because in this new role, in the one he has regulated her to, there are expectations.  There are form fitting clothing, waists the size of toothpicks, and careful application of makeup.  She has to keep it up. For him.  Because he asked her to.

Also, because the rumor mill is going, and she needs to keep it generating.  Even if it is ruining her career.

“Okay,” he says.  It’s soft.  He’s letting her win this public battle.  She sees him with Diggle later, heads bent close, whispering.  And she knows what he is doing.  How he is doing it.  She has always known.

Diggle gives her a careful breakdown of nutrition while trying to kill her later that not.  Not kill her, kill her, but drilling her until every muscle in her body wants to die.  And she knows he doesn’t think she is really “dieting”.  He knows the role of keeping Oliver Queen and the Hood separate entities, and how they have both destroyed their futures.  For him.

He tells her anyway.  She listens, makes notes.  

Later, Oliver makes her taste test some dessert Thea wants to add to the menu.  She eats it all.  He asks for notes and she gives them.  He thinks all the problems are solved.

They aren’t.  But it’s nice to let him think they are.

Felicity doesn’t know how to make him understand.  Doesn’t know how to tell him that he is using her and her abilities to further his campaign and cover his ass.  Because honestly, he sucks at this “billionare playboy” thing.

(If he really was doing it right, and she hates herself for thinking of this, he would be the Oliver Queen she remembers seeing on tv.  He would stare at every girls ass as they walk by, even when he had his arm around Laurel.  He would talk about himself.  Never ask her how she is doing.  If she is okay.  He would casually bring up, “I have a boat.  Want to see it?” and bullshit like that.  He would smile more when she wore her tight dress.  He would be the slimey disgusting frat boy she remembers.  

But he  _ can’t _ .  For all his faults, he can’t be that person again.  Felicity doesn’t know what happened on that island, but it burned that part of him away.  Burn to ashes, and never able to reproduce itself.  

In that respect, she’s thankful for the island.)

See, there is this plan.  Her plan of attack.  She drew it out ten years ago, 18 and wanting to rule the world.  And she has to be in an IT role to do that.   She was just breaking through the male bullshit walls.  Where they were respecting her ideas, her abilities to pick up work and complete it without needing supervision.  She was _ finally _ getting somewhere, after three years of stupid nothing work.  

Then Oliver Queen happened.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm cleaning out my old fics. Trying to see what sticks and what doesn't.


End file.
